The curlews () are a group of nine species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s in the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

''Numenius'', characterised by their long, slender, downcurved bills and mottled brown

plumage Plumage () is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can b ...

. The English name is imitative of the

Eurasian curlew The Eurasian curlew or common curlew (''Numenius arquata'') is a very large wader in the family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia. In Europe, this species is often referred ...

's call, but may have been influenced by the

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th Langland's Piers Plowman">William Langland">Langland's Piers Plowman "''Fissch to lyue in þe flode..Þe corlue by kynde of þe eyre''". In Europe, "curlew" usually refers to one species, the

(''Numenius arquata'').

Description

They are one of the most ancient lineages of scolopacid

wader 245px, A flock of Red_knot.html" ;"title="Dunlins and Red knot">Dunlins and Red knots Waders or shorebirds are birds of the order Charadriiformes commonly found wikt:wade#Etymology 1, wading along shorelines and mudflats in order to foraging, ...

s, together with the

godwit Godwits are a group of four large, long-billed, long-legged and strongly bird migration, migratory waders of the bird genus ''Limosa''. Their long bills allow them to probe deeply in the sand for aquatic worms and mollusca, molluscs. In their ...

s which look similar but have straight bills. Curlews feed on mud or very soft ground, searching for worms and other invertebrates with their long bills. They will also take

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura (meaning "short tailed" in Greek language, Greek), which typically have a very short projecting tail-like abdomen#Arthropoda, abdomen, usually hidden entirely under the Thorax (arthropo ...

s and similar items.

Distribution

Curlews enjoy a worldwide distribution. Most species exhibit strong migratory habits and consequently one or more species can be encountered at different times of the year in Europe,

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

Iberia The Iberian Peninsula ( ), also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in south-western Europe. Mostly separated from the rest of the European landmass by the Pyrenees, it includes the territories of peninsular Spain and Continental Portugal, compri ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

and

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

. The distribution of curlews has altered considerably in the past hundred years as a result of changing agricultural practices. For instance, Eurasian curlew populations have suffered due to draining of marshes for farmland, whereas long-billed curlews have shown an increase in breeding densities around areas grazed by livestock. , there were only a small number of Eurasian curlews still breeding in Ireland, raising concerns that the bird will become extinct in that country. The

stone-curlew The stone-curlews, also known as dikkops or thick-knees, consist of 10 species within the family Burhinidae, and are found throughout the tropical and temperate parts of the world, with two or more species occurring in some areas of Africa, Asia, ...

s are not true curlews (family Scolopacidae) but members of the family

Burhinidae The stone-curlews, also known as dikkops or thick-knees, consist of 10 species within the family Burhinidae, and are found throughout the tropical and temperate parts of the world, with two or more species occurring in some areas of Africa, Asia, ...

, which is in the same order

Charadriiformes Charadriiformes (, from '' Charadrius'', the type genus of family Charadriidae) is a diverse order of small to medium-large birds. It includes about 390 species and has members in all parts of the world. Most charadriiform birds live near water ...

, but only distantly related within that.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Numenius'' was erected by the French scientist

Mathurin Jacques Brisson Mathurin Jacques Brisson (; 30 April 1723 – 23 June 1806) was a French zoologist and natural philosophy, natural philosopher. Brisson was born on 30 April 1723 at Fontenay-le-Comte in the Vendée department of western France. Note that page 14 ...

in his ''Ornithologie'' published in 1760. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

is the

(''Numenius arquata''). The Swedish naturalist

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

had introduced the genus ''Numenius'' in the 6th edition of his ''

Systema Naturae ' (originally in Latin written ' with the Orthographic ligature, ligature æ) is one of the major works of the Sweden, Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. Although the syste ...

'' published in 1748, but Linnaeus dropped the genus in the important tenth edition of 1758 and put the curlews together with the woodcocks in the genus '' Scolopax''. As the publication date of Linnaeus's sixth edition was before the 1758 starting point of the

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an organization dedicated to "achieving stability and sense in the scientific naming of animals". Founded in 1895, it currently comprises 26 commissioners from 20 countries. Orga ...

, Brisson and not Linnaeus is considered as the authority for the genus. The name ''Numenius'' is from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

''noumenios'', a bird mentioned by Hesychius. It is associated with the curlews because it appears to be derived from ''neos'', "new" and ''mene'' "moon", referring to the crescent-shaped bill. The genus contains nine species: The following

cladogram A cladogram (from Greek language, Greek ''clados'' "branch" and ''gramma'' "character") is a diagram used in cladistics to show relations among organisms. A cladogram is not, however, an Phylogenetic tree, evolutionary tree because it does not s ...

shows the genetic relationships between the species. It is based on a study published in 2023. The Late

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

( Montmartre Formation, some 35 mya)

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

''Limosa gypsorum'' of France was originally placed in ''Numenius'' and may in fact belong there. Apart from that, a

Late Pleistocene The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division ...

curlew from San Josecito Cave, Mexico has been described. This fossil was initially placed in a distinct

, ''Palnumenius'', but was actually a

chronospecies A chronospecies is a species derived from a sequential development pattern that involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. The sequence of alterations eventually produces a population that is p ...

or paleosubspecies related to the long-billed curlew. The

upland sandpiper The upland sandpiper (''Bartramia longicauda'') is a large sandpiper, closely related to the curlews. Older names are the upland plover and Bartram's sandpiper. In Louisiana, it is also colloquially known as the papabotte. It is the Monotypic tax ...

(''Bartramia longicauda'') is an odd bird which is the closest relative of the curlews. It is distinguished from them by its yellow legs, long tail, and shorter, less curved bill.

Description

Distribution

Taxonomy

References

Further reading